Healings

(Continuing to answer questions for the young lady in America, still restoring what was lost this year to hackers…)

---

Oh, how I long to either have or to know someone with the gift of healing!  Imagine the ability to easy people’s sufferings with the wave of a hand or the touch of mercy.  How great a day that would be!  But, alas, I have never known of anyone with this gift!

This is does not mean this does not exist, I just have not been convinced it exists any longer.  If you look to all of the healings in the New Testament, they were all a call to belief for those whom were healed, even to whole communities.  So, it was never, “Let’s cure uncle Bob of cancer!”  Or, “Raise him from the dead so he can believe!!”  It really was a confirmation of Jesus’ claim to be God, then a witnessing tool for the early church, not a power someone possesses, as people would like to envision it.

But, I have known people whom were miraculously healed, including myself on several occasions, but this was through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, not through some human vessel.  I have known a man whom lost an eye in a rubber band fight – I was the one whom took him to Emergency, there was no mistaking the shattered remains of his eye!  (BARF!)  The following day, when I went to visit him – the eye had been restored to him.  My church had been in prayer for him the night before, but no one thought an eye would appear in an empty socket! He knew it was a miracle and accepted Christ because of this.  The doctors all agreed he was an impostor – eyes to do not grow back – and escorted him out of the hospital.  My friend now decided to set right some wrongs he had committed and was murdered only a week later.  God knew what it would take for him to come to Him – because this was his last chance. 

When God heals, it is for good (unless you are just plain stupid and like broken bones for instance!).  The ailment is not passed on to another or any such superstition as you commented you saw on TV.  It is gone from your life for good (unless you are stupid).  It is a miracle.

I was healed of cancer in 1995, in fact when diagnosed I only had an estimated 8 weeks left.  It blew my doctor’s socks off as this cancer is rapid and fatal, period.  He knew I was going to be losing body parts and still die, but at my pre-op the tumor was gone!  It did not relocate somewhere else, it was not passed on to someone else, he definitely had not been wrong - it was a healing straight from God.

Of course, I did eventually have to be carved on for cancer several years later, but it was a different form of cancer.  And though it hurts to admit it, God had a purpose in that surgery – to change the direction of my life.  I guess I just was not ready yet the first time around and He healed me – I am guessing so that I could continue my studies and prepare for what I love to do now as a ministry.

Outside of the Holy Spirit stepping in, the only other healings I have seen are when elders have prayed over a Christian and anointed them with oil.  But, even then few are healed.  We do have to allow God His authority over our lives, no matter how broken we may become, or how badly someone is needed.  But, how I weep for those whom are never healed and leave this Earth soon after.  (I am almost out of friends, so many have been lost in the past 3 years, 99%to cancer alone - 67!  Yes, no exaggeration!)

So, yes Healing does happen, it is rare, it serves God’s purposes not our own when it does occur and usually it is a call for the healed one, and those around them, to come to Jesus for salvation.